Today is National Tell-A-Lie Day!  NO LIE!  IT TRULY IS!!  (Sorry!  Couldn't resist!)  Now, I've been trying to figure out who came up with the idea of having a national day when it was all right to tell a lie.  I considered such outstanding citizens as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W.

And it couldn't have been a Congressional decision. or all 365 days would have had to be so named.  I did some research to no avail.  Undoubtedly, it had to be the same person who came up with National Potato Day and National Pickle Day--yep, they do exist!   

But it set me to wondering who had told the biggest fib?  This one would have to be right up there!
First the Award: 

JANET COOKE

Pulitzer Prize winner

for her September 29, 1980, Washington Post article,

Jimmy’s World

 
This heart-wrenching tale circles around a horrific life as described by a little boy, just eight years old.  Thanks to his mother’s live-in boyfriend, Jimmy, “a precocious little boy with sandy hair, velvety brown eyes and needle marks freckling the baby-smooth skin of his thin brown arms” lived a life defined by heroin addiction, violence, and hopelessness.
What did the child want to be when he grew up?  A dope dealer.  And he was already well on his way.
If Janet Cooke wanted to move hearts, she surely succeeded.  The Washington Post was flooded with offers to help Jimmy.  But Janet refused to divulge his whereabouts.  “Too dangerous,” she insisted. 
She and her bosses figured the excitement would soon die down.  Instead, Janet was awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for the article. 
 And then her bosses made a shocking discovery: she had made up some of the achievements listed on her resume.
 Finally, the truth came out.  There was no Jimmy.  Janet Cooke had made him up. His addiction, his sandy hair and velvety brown eyes, his hopelessness, his career dreams… all of it.
Uh! Oh!

https://specials.msn.com/A-List/Lifestyle/Biggest-Liars-in-History.aspx?cp-documentid=28210119&imageindex=1